He charged. The ocean came closer and closer. He leapt, diving in. He splashed, sinking down. His body stayed intact. No burst of ash or deteriorating. He's still undead.
He screamed. He let out a week's worth of frustration.
Owen Harper was a vampire, and he hated every second of it.
==ILWAS==
People rarely looked up at buildings. They either kept their gaze on the ground, or level with the street. Nobody looked up unless something caught their attention.
Maggie stared down at all of them. Nobody looked at her. She's alone. None of it mattered.
She leaned.
"So are you ready to jump?"
Maggie glared at him. She adjusted her seat on the roof, still sitting. The man sat himself down next to her. "Would you just piss off? Get off my roof."
"Your roof?" He asked.
"I'm going to jump, so just leave me alone." Maggie snapped.
"Look, darling, you know, I'm not here to stop you. Seriously. You think you've got problems? What, did your man dump you?" He snarked.
She flinched. He already pissed her off, but now the grief came back all over. It made her sink even farther. She's not sure if she wanted to jump or punch him off the roof. "Sorry, love. Were you talking to me? It's just, you know, I'm a bit busy right now. I'm not really interested in listening." She turned to glare at him.
The man opened his mouth. Multiple sharp teeth extended from his jaw. It reminded her of a shark's mouth.
Maggie gawked. "What was that?"
The teeth shrunk back in his mouth. "My fangs."
"Yeah right." Maggie scoffed. She couldn't deny the teeth, actually, no. She watched that. She recoiled from him, climbing off the ledge. She backed away from the man. "Oh, my God. What the hell are you?"
"I'm a vampire." He got off the ledge too. Slow and careful, he maintained a distance with her and blocked her from the ledge. "One of the undead."
"That's not-" Maggie gulped. Her heart thumped. Tears had gathered in her eyes, but they were drying in her confusion. "Look, you can't be dead. I don't know how you got your teeth to do that, but you're not dead. You're standing here, you're talking, you're moving. You're not dead."
The man merely stared at her. Not arguing, not dismissing, just letting her rant. Maggie can't keep denying it. She also can't believe it.
"You're- you're dead?" She repeated.
"Technically undead. Kinda like Jesus, really, but without the beard, you know." The man explained. "Can I grow a beard? I don't actually know that anymore. Then again, I'm undead so maybe I could grow a beard. Not that I wanted one, you understand, but you know, one day I-"
"Okay. Okay." Maggie stopped him from the tangent. She honestly had better things to do tonight. "You're dead and that's, that's clearly a bit shit and I'm sorry and everything but, if you are dead, then why are you here? You can't be wanting to jump. You can't die twice."
"Sorry, are you an expert?"
"Sorry, are you an idiot?"
The man grinned. "Yeah. I'm an undead idiot."
Maggie sucked in her lips. This is all so very strange, and more than a little scary. The man wasn't like the vampires she saw on TV. He's not exactly suave or gorgeous. He's pale, yeah, but that's it.
Fuck she needed to smoke.
Maggie pulled out a smoke. She lit it, taking a deep breath of the smoke. She's gonna jump tonight so what's the point of worrying about cigarettes? "So, come on then, what's it like?"
"What?" The man asked.
"Well, being dead. What delights have I got to look forward to?" Maggie asked.
He frowned. "Darkness. Nothing."
"Cheery." But that's what she was looking for, anyway. Nothing. Anything was better than this. "Thanks. Look, why are you here?"
==ILWAS=
The man explained. Being dead wasn't a strange thing at work, or so he said. It's just something new. His company never employed a vampire before. He was the head of their medical team- the one with the most access to their blood and with the trust to take more. He was on probation until he got himself under control.
It infuriated him. The man wanted to do his job, he wanted to help. His team should trust him enough to help. Instead they replaced him with an old friend of his boss. That new doctor already put together a bunch of tests for him, made with the help of another vampire. No, not the one that turned him, another separate vampire.
Three vampires were just walking around Cardiff. That's not terrifying.
The man was made to stay in the company jail cells until he was completely cleared of being a threat. They took his security badges, and his gun. They warned him if he flashed his fangs even once, they'd keep him locked up forever. The tests would go on until that doctor was satisfied. Until then, the man was tasked with making everyone coffee.
He came back from the dead, and made him their barista. The previous coffee boy taught him how. The man admitted he was angry at him, maybe said some harsh things that he wanted to take back now. At the time? He couldn't help saying it. Ianto was shagging their boss, his other coworkers all had partners, Chloe had Anthony and Gwen had Rhys. Even the replacement doctor. His only potential girlfriend- Toshiko- only kissed him because he was going to die. Now she barely looked at him.
The vampire and the doctor (Latshaw and Martha respectively) gave him a long list of tests. Checking his strength, his speed, his breathing. Everything a doctor should check over during a physical, the man said. The man himself did them all the time for his team or when he was in residency. It just irritated him to be a specimen, a piece of meat. Worse than a lab rat.
The team got a new case. The man delivered coffee to them. He used to be sitting in that group to help. Now he's being deliberately excluded but at least so was she.
"She?" Maggie asked.
The man tensed. "The girl that brought me back."
Leah got in trouble for that too, just not like him. Suspended for three days, and brought back with a heavy demotion. She was just sixteen. An alien, but still sixteen in human years.
Alien teenagers, and vampires. It's strange.
The case was of an old man, Mr Henry Parker. They had him on a list of being mostly harmless, until Toshiko found an energy spike from his house. Nobody had seen him since 1986 after his wife passed. The man said there's nothing to be scared of, and a coworker teased him about his fear of Tintin. The man reckoned he was shagging the dog, and asked the teen to confirm. The teen admitted she never heard of Tintin, not being a fan of cartoons. When the man corrected it as a comic, the teen admitted to not reading those either. The man was undead, and he had more life than this girl did.
Maggie admitted that was sad.
The alien energy pulse was suspicious, yeah. They were required to check it out. Gwen led the meeting, instead of Leah. The new hire was tasked to get the medical history of Mr Parker. The man and Leah were ignored.
The man bickered with the new doctor again, Martha. Martha was just being nice. She was just doing her job, the same as he would've done. He just wished he could do something besides making coffee. But Martha just tried to help.
"Because you died, and because you need help. That's not a bad thing. Well, it is a bad thing that you died, obviously, but it's not bad that you need help, if you know what I mean?"
It was really sweet. If she wasn't engaged, and really set on him, the man would've tried shagging her. Martha hadn't even tried shagging Jack. Everyone tried shagging Jack. Or so he was ranting when he sliced his hand open.
No blood spilled out. The man admitted to not being much of a bleeder in life, and he was even less of one in death. Latshaw got him a new bag of blood. The fresh drink healed sped up his healing. The cut healed in a second. The man pushed the vampire away, storming off in a huff. His new enhanced speed helped him avoid them both.
==ILWAS==
They'd moved back to the ledge now. Maggie was smoking a new cig, sitting to relax instead of sitting to jump. She'll admit to herself about being intrigued by the story. It'll be good to hear something interesting before she goes.
Maggie scoffed. "So he offers to help you and you push him away? Charming."
"Yeah, no heartbeat. Sorry if I don't follow social niceties any more." The man snarked back.
"You mean you did before?" Maggie snarked.
God, you're a pain in the arse, aren't you? Is that why your man dumped you?" He huffed
Maggie snapped her head around to gawk at him. Nobody said anything cruel to her in ages. In a way it's refreshing. She's so used to sympathies or well-wishes. It's a change of pace to be told something so cruel. At the same time, this stranger was insulting a man she loved so very much. She hated that kind of slander on him. He didn't do nothing to deserve it.
"Oh, I hit a nerve. What, did you get your heart broken?" The man asked.
"No, actually. He died." Maggie snapped.
His face fell. Her man hadn't come back like this one. Her man died and stayed dead. This man complained of office romance and being demoted. Her story was much, much worse. He's got no right. "I'm sorry."
That's the sort of thing she's used to hearing. It's disgusting to hear again. She came to this roof to get away from it. "No you're not. You couldn't care less about me and I don't care about you. Just because we're both planning on jumping, it doesn't mean we have some sort of special connection."
"You don't know the half of it."
==ILWAS==
He and Leah had enough. She'd apparently nearly shouted at Toshiko. They begged Jack for something to do. Jack denied them both. The man argued about going home. Leah insisted on making a fuss around the job.
Jack agreed. The man should go home. Leah, though, should go meet up with her one and only friend. So the man pissed off back home. Imagine his surprise when Tosh popped round. The man thought their boss sent her. Tosh instead scolded him for being a wee bit selfish, and brought out drinks for them.
The man admitted he could eat and drink. It just will never again satisfy him. Only blood can do that now. He was still angry, so as Tosh rambled on in his flat about being a bridesmaid for Gwen, the man ignored her.
==ILWAS==
It made Maggie so very sad.
"You sound like an old married couple. Brian used to say I talked too much." Maggie tried to laugh. No joy came back.
"Tell me about him." The man asked.
"Today's my wedding anniversary. My perfect day. It was an accident." Maggie admitted. She sniffled, taking another deep breath of the cigarette. "We'd been married less than an hour. I was picking confetti out of my hair when it happened."
Maggie can remember afterwards too. They'd been on a quiet stretch of road. No cars around for ages. She walked up the road, dazed, her wedding dress soaked in Brian's blood. She couldn't stop staring at it. Some had gotten on her wedding ring. She'd wanted to save this dress for their future daughter. She hadn't seen that dress since it was collected as evidence.
"Shit. I'm-"
"Sorry. Yeah. I know." Maggie heard it from everyone. Brian's parents. Her parents. Her bosses and coworkers. Brian's job. Strangers at the store. The people at the funeral home. Every bloody person she spoke to for the past year kept saying that one word. It didn't even matter anymore.
"You waited until your wedding anniversary to kill yourself? Why?" The man asked.
"Does it matter?"
"Why have you waited?" The man pressed.
"Because I believe people. I believe them when they said it would get better." She glared at him. "So, what do you think, Doctor? Do you really think it's going to get any better?"
The man clenched his jaw.
Maggie tossed her cigarette off the roof. It floated down to the bottom. She watched it go, thoughtful.
==ILWAS==
The man started talking again. Tosh hadn't stopped talking. He started yelling at her.
"After I changed, I wasn't well. It's not like in the movies where you get perfect control. I was hungry. I thought about killing her. I couldn't handle that- hurting her like that. I never realized until then how much her safety mattered, how much she did. When I finally showed her how I felt, she left me behind to fend for myself."
Okay. That is sad.
So he told Tosh all of this. How he felt, how she left him. Even now she's only around out of obligation. If she wants to break him gently, she might as well do it.
Tosh didn't break up with him. "You can say what you like. I'm not leaving you." That's what she said to him.
She brought pizza and beer. The kind of date they always talked about. The man couldn't be happy. Couldn't believe he was allowed to be happy. He needed to avoid sunlight to get to his house. He yelled at her again. He yelled and screamed because she was there. Because she was everything he wanted, but she just wanted someone as screwed up as she was.
She liked broken people. That's all he was now. A broken man, with a heart that couldn't beat and a constant urge to feed off her. He ran from his flat, running in the shadows to a nearby lake. He jumped inside.
He couldn't drown. He didn't need to breathe.
Thirty-six minutes later he swam out. Anthony found him first.
"You enjoy that?" He snapped at him.
"I've done that." Anthony replied. Because the person that turned him was a true monster. Anthony now had a girlfriend, friends, and people that liked him. "Surprised you didn't just stand on the street waiting for the clouds to pass."
He wouldn't deny it. He thought about it. So many times that week, he thought about it. Sunlight kills him quickest. It's just very painful. He still feels pain. He just wished he couldn't feel anything.
Maggie got that. She really, really got that.
Mr Parker had the best security system in the world. It detects body heat. Only three people in their team lost body heat, and only one was an employee under Torchwood with necessary clearances. The man insisted he go on the job. They gave him back his badge and gun.
Leah stood up. She demanded her clearances back. Her bugs were the best communication system they had, and she's the only one who knows how they work. That energy pulse could wipe out their human tech. Jack allowed it. Her tablet was restored to her.
Tosh came by. She gave him back the keys to his flat. She'd turned off the telly for him.
==ILWAS==
"You screamed at her. You said all those things, and that's it?" Maggie asked. She'd have killed Brian for doing all that to her.
"That's Tosh. Always the professional." The man replied, and he smiled the same way Brian used to.
The way he did on their wedding day. The way he did on the drive. Her last living memory of him was with that smile. Her actual last memory was of his corpse in a coffin.
"I don't care. I'm not interested in you, in old men or alien meteors. I came here because my husband died. I just want to jump!" Maggie shouted at him.
The man grabbed her. He dragged her over. "Let's get on with it."
"Get off me!" Maggie kicked at him. He's got the horrifying strength that vampires did.
He pushed her. She leaned over the edge again. She saw the street down below. There's no sight of the cigarette butt, so far down at the bottom. Would she land on it? Would she land somewhere else? Could this vampire throw her, like she did her cigarette? She didn't want him to.
Her hands braced on the ledge. She kept herself from being tipped over. It'd be useless against him but she needed to try something!
"You, you're too scared." The man pointed out to her. Like a smug prick.
"Aren't you?" She needed to keep him talking. He liked talking. If he kept talking, he'd not throw her over. "How did- how did you get from that to here? What happened?"
The grip relaxed on her back. He went back to his story.
==ILWAS==
Latshaw advised him to be mindful. He's stronger as a vampire. One wrong twitch of a pinkie, he breaks a human's rib. Or stops their heart. Leah warned his body no longer gave off heat levels needed for the charge of her device, so it's strictly solar powered. It still held a charge currently, but he'd need to be careful.
She's not a worrier or concerned about his safety. She meant being careful with the bug.
The man snuck into the building, unnoticed. His team made sure a guard was removed- a simple fake emergency call from the hospital got him running. The guard left behind was a lot bigger. The man ended up climbing over the gate to avoid him. Even with super strength, it's best not to leave a trail. His super speed helped him get around without being seen.
The man turned off the power generator. No guard noticed him. The electricity buzzed in his hands. It reminded him of what it felt like to be warm. Even for just a moment, he felt alive again.
A guard did come after that. The man punched him, sending him to the ground immediately.
Latshaw praised his technique. Leah judged it- said he should have hit a different nerve. Sometimes she's just a cunt for no reason.
He made it in the house. The security was a bit more advanced than they thought. Tosh guided him through with some help from Leah. A few more guards were sneaking about, so the man took them out with Leah's suggestion. He asked for a compliment. She said the guard tried his best.
Again, cunt for no reason.
She'd be a great friend otherwise.
He found Mr Parker. The elderly man was surrounded by machines keeping him alive. Some human, the man recognized from his hospital days. The rest were alien. Put together haphazardly, somehow keeping Mr Parker breathing and his heart beating.
Mr Parker knew the man was Torchwood. Knew that Jack was an American, and that Leah was there too. He'd wanted Tosh to visit. Mr Parker complimented her legs. The man wanted to wring his neck for that.
He revealed the energy device. A glowing purple shell-shaped thing, he called it the Pulse. It did glow in rhythm, like a pulse might. Mr Parker named it himself. He didn't know what it did, only that it was another thing keeping him alive.
The man proved him wrong. Hell, Leah was proving him wrong. She's an expert on alien tech, and she didn't know of anything like Mr Parker described that kept people alive. The Pulse was just building and building up in energy. If it kept building, things would be dangerous for the local area, not just the people in the house.
Mr Parker refused to give it up. He didn't want to die. That the young would never understand what dying felt like, the nothingness and the cold. To feel your body waste away.
The man almost laughed.
Mr Parker started coughing. The man gave him an oxygen mask. Mr Parker bemoaned his fate. He'd fought in wars, he traveled the planet, started a successful business, had and lost a wife, built up his collection of alien artifacts. He was a success story. Yet still, he ended up the same as everyone else. Dying in a bed and pissing in a bag. He couldn't even eat his last meal of medium rare steak and black pepper sauce. His body wouldn't handle it.
He gave the man the Pulse. He lost his will to keep fighting, and before the man's eyes he died.
==ILWAS==
The man tried. He really, honestly tried.
"I couldn't save him." The man said. "He needed CPR. I couldn't do that. With my strength, I might've broken his ribs and punctured his lungs. He needed air, and I couldn't give it to him. Everything I've seen, everything that's out there and it was an old man dying of a heart attack. Just another person dying because of me. Everything that's happened and that was the final straw. Because at that moment, I just wanted it all to end."
Maggie gulped.
==ILWAS==
Everyone was yelling at him. The Pulse was giving out stronger, and stronger energy readings. The man needed to get it out of there. So he held it to his chest.
Even the vampire objected to that.
Hell, even Leah objected. She reasoned it's possible but there's no guarantee.
The man made her promise not to bring him back again. The man gave Martha permission to keep his job. He thanked his team for the fun. Tosh said she loved him- honestly, really loved him. Not because of the things he said, but because of the kind of man he was. The good things about him that he couldn't see anymore.
He apologized. And said he loved her too. For all the same good things in Tosh that she couldn't see either.
The Pulse glowed.
==ILWAS==
"What happened?" Maggie asked.
The man paused. "We all assume life's going to be shit, don't we? That it's all just darkness. But you know what? Sometimes, it's not." He pulled a purple, glowing alien shell from his nearby bag.
He had it on him the whole time. It did glow with a pulse-like rhythm. It's beautiful. No wonder Mr Parker stayed alive just to watch it glow.
"What is it?" Maggie asked.
"Do you remember in the seventies NASA sent messages into space?" Maggie hardly cared what the Americans did in their own time. "A map of our solar system, pictures of what we look like. It had images, voices, music. Even a bit of Chuck Berry. Well, this is a reply. Not that we know who from. Leah says these things are very common across the stars. She'd need time to translate things."
A reply from aliens. Guess all this talk revealed more about aliens than she ever wanted to know- even with all the insanity from the past few years. Some aliens actually sent a reply, and that reply could explode?
"Well, what does it do?" Maggie asked.
"It sang to me." Owen replied. The Pulse glowed again. It released a long string of energy. Maggie heard it. The singing- gently and beautiful. Sparkles swirled around the energy. It twinkled, the way things did in fairytales. "It's a glimmer of light in the darkness. See? Sometimes it does get better."
Something so beautiful came from the stars. Some alien creatures way up there sent this tiny thing to their planet. She's hearing something she never expected. It traveled an untold distance just to reach her now, and play this song.
She started to cry. Maggie couldn't help it. Brian always said she could cry at the drop of a hat. She hardly cried this past year.
The man returned back to work. They gave him back his job. Martha left for her original job. Tosh made the man promise to tell her if it ever got bad- if that darkness ever started to win. He agreed, and he honestly meant it. He admitted his fears.
Tosh kissed him then. Not being an idiot, the man kissed her back.
Then a photograph fell on his head.
He showed Maggie the picture. Her and Brian, before it all went wrong.
"That's when I saw you." He admitted.
Maggie frowned. "I thought you came here to jump?"
The man shook his head. "No, I came here to help." He handed her the picture.
Maggie held it. She did drop it early, trying to say goodbye to the husband she never got to have. To the happiness and joy she thought she'd never have again. Seeing this picture, seeing Brian smile at her side, made her cry again. Some spark of joy came back to her heart.
"What do I do now?"
"You've got a choice." He offered. Maggie sniffled, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "If you think that the darkness is too much, then go for it. But if there is a chance, just some hope. It could be having a cigarette, or that first sip of hot tea on a cold morning, or it could be your mates. But if there's even a tiny glimmer of light then don't you think that's worth taking a chance?"
God, she wanted it to be. She missed her friends. She really missed drinks with them, with jokes and laughing. Just laughing.
The man turned the Pulse on again. The song spread out into the open air above them. "What's your name?"
"Maggie. Maggie Hopley." She replied.
He held her hand. She squeezed it. It's cold, and had no warmth. It still warmed her heart. "Well, Maggie, it's up to you. Your choice. Do you still want to jump?" He asked.
Maggie shook her head.
The Pulse spread. Purple strings of light spread out over Cardiff. The song went with it.
"What's your name?" Maggie asked, as the song played.
He smiled. "Owen Harper."
Maggie sniffled again. Her and Owen Harper, spreading a little hope. She laughed.